Continuing on from my two colour palette … Next, using three Maimeri colours you can create an exciting colour range to work with. All you need is one yellow, one red and one blue. The first example is a warm palette, using Terra de Sienna, Blu Oltre Marie Chiaro and Rosso Pyrrolo – together these form a soft green, a fiery orange and a greyish purple. They also mix to make a beautiful warm grey and a luscious purple /black. The second trio is a cool one – Blu de Fainza, Gilallo Primario and Rosso Magenta – this is pretty...

Well, that’s not quite true, but if I had to choose just two pigments to take to my desert island they would be Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna. With these two I can make warm and cool greys, soft underpaintings and juicy darks as well as the clear bright clear colours that they are when used solo. For this little sketch I used Maimeri Blu Oltremare Chiaro and Terra Di Siena Bruciata (don’t they sound good in Italian?). These two colours are my essentials in any brand, so it’s good to compare Maimeri with the others I’m more familiar with....

If you’re a watercolour painter you will probably have heard of Ox Gall. This is a slightly unpleasant smelling liquid extracted from the liver of cattle that has been used for many years to achieve “smoother” effects with watercolour paint. It is basically a wetting agent, meaning that the paper will take the paint more readily. Paper which is heavily sized almost repels the paint so that it sometimes beads. Ox Gall will allow the watercolour to be absorbed, making blending much simpler. So, here goes my trial of Maimeri Ox Gall… On the left is a test patch painted...

With Armistice Day next Sunday this seems like a good week to paint poppies. Most of the poppies in my garden are red, pink and orange, so this gave me a chance to try out Maimeri Blu warm pigments! The colours which I’ve used in this little painting are: Rosso Primario Magenta, Rosso Pyrollo, Giallo Primario, Giallo Transparente and Blu Oltremare. I began with a wet in wet wash, dropping in my cooler reds towards the top to push those flowers back a little, then adding the warmer reds and oranges nearer the foreground. Yellows were dropped in, too, being...

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